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A question that I frequently hear is "Do I really need to have my own domain name?" The one word answer is "YES.". If you put up your site with some of the free web hosting services, the only company who benefits is the web hosting company. The last person who benefits is you. There are a number of reasons why having your own domain name is a must: 1) When you have your own domain name, the address of your web site will be of the form //www.yoursite.com. On the other hand, if you put up your site on one of the free servers, the address of your web site will be something like http://www.somefreewebsite.com/members/yoursite/. Which of these two sounds more professional? Which of these two is smaller and is hence easier to remember? I leave you to make the judgment. 2) The only way to make money online is to build up credibility among your customers. Having your own domain name is the first step in doing that. Your customers will feel more comfortable buying whatever it is that you are selling if you have your own domain name. It makes your customers feel that they are dealing with a large, established company, rather than with some fly by night operator. 3) When you have your domain name, you can have multiple email aliases of the form alias@yoursite.com. This allows you to assign different email aliases to different functions, all of them pointing to your actual email address. Hence, for example, for questions related to the products and services that you sell, you can have an email address like sales@yoursite.com. For questions related to the newsletter that you publish, you can have an email address like editor@yoursite.com. For comments/suggestions about your web site, you can direct your customers to feedback@yoursite.com or webmaster@yoursite.com. Having different email addresses for different functions not only makes it easier for you to filter your email using your email client program (Eudora Pro, Pegasus Mail, Outlook Express etc.), but also gives your customers the impression that yours is a large, established company with whom it is safe to do business. 4) Many search engines give a lot of emphasis to the home page of a particular domain, i.e. other things remaining the same, a home page of a domain will often rank higher for a particular keyword than any other page. When you use some of the free hosting services, your index.html page is the home page of your site, but not of that domain. Hence in these search engines, your site will find it very difficult to make it to the top 20 or top 30, let alone the top 10 for some of the really competitive keywords. Just think of the amount of traffic that you will lose if this happens. 5) Some search engines are now refusing to spider the web sites which are hosted by the free web hosts. For instance, if you have a site hosted by the free web hosts, you would, until recently, have got the infamous error message saying that too many pages have been submitted from your site if you tried to submit your site to AltaVista. While AltaVista now says that "your URL has been submitted for processing" if you try to submit your site, rest assured that it will not spider any site belonging to many of the free web hosts even though it says that your site has been accepted. Can you afford that? 6) When your site is hosted by some of the free web hosts, you will find it very difficult to get it listed in a major directory like Yahoo!. Although Yahoo! will never admit that it won't add a commercial site which is being hosted in one of the free web hosts, in practice, it will be a miracle if you can get your site listed by Yahoo! Listing your site with Yahoo! is difficult enough even when you have your own domain. Don't make your task more difficult than what it needs to be. If you do not currently have a domain name, are you convinced that you need one right now? The small fee that you pay per year for your own domain name is peanuts compared to the benefits that you get. You can check out the availability of domain names and register new domains here. "Sounds like Greek to me... Domain Registration? E-Mail forwarding? Domain name locking?" If you've ever scratched your head and thought "What does that stuff mean?", then you're reading the right article! Check out a few of these terms, and amaze your friends tomorrow! prepared by Janet Kerns, Tech Support
General Information Registering a Domain Name What does it mean to register a domain name? Transferring a Domain Name What does it mean to transfer a domain
name from another registrar?
Parking a Domain Name What does it mean to park a domain name? Forwarding a Domain Name What does it mean to forward a domain name? What does it mean to forward with masking? Domain Name Locking Email Forwarding Hosting a Domain Name What does it mean to host a domain? Private Registration POP3/IMAP Email Accounts What is POP3/IMAP email services? One Page Website General Information A domain name is a Web address. The domain name is mapped to an IP address (which represents a physical point on the Internet). Thus a domain name locates an organization or other entity on the Internet. When someone types a domain name into a Web browser, the requested Web page will open. For example, the domain name www.yourdomain.com locates an Internet address for "yourdomain.com."A domain name consists of a top-level and a second-level domain. The "com" part of the domain name generally reflects the type or purpose of the organization or entity and is called the top-level domain (TLD) name. The part of the domain name located to the left of the dot (" . ") - "yourdomain" in this case - is called the second-level domain (SLD) name. The second-level domain name - being the "readable" part of the address - refers to the organization or entity behind the Internet address. Second-level domain names must be unique on the Internet and registered with an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers- (ICANN-)accredited registrar. Back to top Registering a Domain Name What does it mean to register a domain name? The Internet domain name system (DNS) consists of a directory, organized hierarchically, of all the domain names and their corresponding computers registered to particular companies and persons using the Internet. When you register a domain name, it will be associated with the computer on the Internet you designate during the period the registration is in effect.Note that the above description applies to domains that are registered and hosted. If the registrant elects to, a domain can instead be registered and parked. A parked domain name does not need a DNS affiliation. Back to top Transferring a Domain Name What does it mean to transfer a domain name from another registrar? If you currently have a domain name which is registered with one Registrar and you wish to use a different Registrar you initiate a domain transfer. Once complete, the domain name is still registered in your name, but with a different registrar.Back to top Parking a Domain Name What does it mean to park a domain name? Essentially, to park a domain name means to reserve your registered domain until you have created the site content, found a hosting provider, or sold the domain to a third party. When you park your site, a temporary Web page will be displayed until you have decided what to do with the domain. Domain name parking is often used by registrants who do not yet have a hosting provider.Parking options include a one-page Web site that’ll inform the visitor to the site that, for example, this page is “Under Construction,” “Coming Soon,” or “For Sale.” You can also elect to have a customized page displayed. To set up your parked domain, use the One-Page Web Site Setup Wizard in the “Parked Pages” section of the account management department. Back to top Forwarding a Domain Name What does it mean to forward a domain name? Forwarding a domain name enables you to direct incoming traffic from your domain to an already existing Web site. Thus, when someone attempts to access your site, he or she is automatically redirected. Typically, this option is selected by users who are registering a new domain, but are already hosting their files elsewhere. When the domain name is forwarded, the destination address, not your domain name, is displayed in the browser's address bar. This can be avoided by choosing to forward with masking.Back to top What does it mean to forward with masking? If you decide to forward with masking, visitors are effectively kept from knowing they have been redirected.Forwarding with masking secures that your domain name remains in a visitor's browser's address bar when the visitor is being redirected. That way, the actual destination address is concealed from the user who only sees the domain name from which he or she is being forwarded. If you are using regular forwarding, the destination address, not your domain name, is displayed when the visitor is redirected. So if, for example, the destination Web page has the address http://members.geocities.com/users/username, that address can be hidden and www.yourdomain.com can be shown instead. Back to top Email Forwarding Email forwarding allows you to begin receiving - at your current email server - email that was addressed to you at your new domain name. This gives you the opportunity to begin expressing and promoting additional web presence before you actually have your new domain name in full operation.Say the current email address where you receive mail is Bill@myjob.com. You have registered a domain name called mydomain.com. Forwarding allows you to have mail addressed to Bill@mydomain.com forwarded to your Bill@myjob.com address. Or Sales@mydomain.com, CustomerService@mydomain.com, etc. An additional benefit is this acts like a permanent address, so if you change jobs or ISPs all you need to do is change the target address where you are having you mail forwarded. You do not have to try to notify everyone you correspond with of your new address. Back to top Domain Name Locking Domain Name Lock is fast, easy to enable and keeps your valuable names secure. When you choose domain locking, our technology puts their names in Registrar Lock, meaning they are secure not only on our site, but also at the registry, the very top level of domain administration. Domain Name Locking provides an additional layer of protection from inadvertent changes to your domain's name servers, which could make them inaccessible.But more importantly, Domain Name Locking prevents unauthorized transfers from even being initiated! Usually all you need to do to transfer a domain name is to go to the new Registrar's website and request the transfer. The new Registrar sends the request to the Registry who then forwards it on to the current Registrar. We already reject the request unless you tell us specifically to go ahead with the transfer. However, if your domain name is Locked, the Registry will reject the transfer request immediately for you. There's no need for you to respond to any notice from us, the transfer is denied before it even gets started! If you decide you do need to transfer your domain name elsewhere, change the name servers, etc., simply log in to your account and remove the lock (by un-checking the Domain Name Lock check box). While other companies charge as much as $10 a year for Domain Name Locking, we provide you with the identical service absolutely free. Back to top Hosting a Domain What does it mean to host a domain? Hosting (also known as Web site hosting and Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites.Back to top Private Registration When you buy a domain, your personal information (e.g. name, address, email address, and phone number) is, by law, immediately available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.You have the power to change this with a private "unlisted" registration through Domains by Proxy™. Using Private Registration your domain is registered in Domains by Proxy's name --- so its information is made public --- not yours. You retain full benefits of ownership. You can cancel, sell, renew and transfer your domain; set up its name servers and resolve domain-related disputes. Patent-supported systems let you manage and control all postal mail and email addressed to your domain, as well as your domain's contact information. Back to top POP3/IMAP Email Accounts What are POP3/IMAP email services? POP3 or IMAP: What does it mean and what's best for me? With a POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) account, your email goes to our servers and we hold it for you there. When you check your email, our servers immediately download all the email to your PC. You read, reply, delete, manage and store these emails on your PC's hard drive. POP3 is the service you get automatically with your QSDNet email accounts. If you prefer, though, you can select IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) email service from QSDNet at no additional charge. An IMAP account offers the advantage of allowing you to preview your email on our server before you download it to your PC. You can view just the subject and sender, for example, and decide to delete it right from our server. WebMail uses the IMAP system. WebMail lets you get your email anytime, anywhere you have access to the Web. You can create folders and mange your email on our server, just like the hard drive-based email programs you're familiar with, like Eudora, Outlook, Netscape Messenger, and others. If you use WebMail along with your QSDNet email service, you get the IMAP system automatically.Back to top One-Page website A one-page website from QSDnet is an easily created website consisting of text and graphics you supply and placed on professionally designed templates. The service includes hosting on our secure servers for one-year.Back to top |
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